More Free Online Technical Courses

M.I.T. has just announced it is expanding its list of free online courses anyone can take. Attendees earn completion certificates. M.I.T.’s OpenCourseWare project already offers 2,100 courses used by 100 million people. OpenCulture, Free Ed, E-learning Center, and Alison offer competing free online courses, including many on computing and IT certification.

It is just for the interest, not for any possible career so if I can’t reach the sky, no big deal. Been interested in atoms and the universe since I was a kid but microchip tech got to me.

As it happens a quick dip into the test questions showed that the Thorium cycle is now covered, but I hadn’t a clue about the binding energy equations, still interesting though.

If my kids can’t get into a decent college later on for lack of scholarships, this might be a good away to get some credit for whatever they find an interest in. Perhaps these credits can be turned into a fast track regular degree.

I wish I could have done the same 30 years ago in hindsight (except the web and PCs didn’t exist), the college experience is somewhat over rated.

Well well, I did Physics A-level too back in 75 or so, it was my favorite but then the integrated circuit was just starting to get interesting and the prospect of working on a British microprocessor chip (later the transputer) was unbeatable. That eventually got me over here.

Back then physics also included nuclear energy and some binding energy stuff as well, enough to do rough calculations on energy which I have mostly forgotten. I want to get that back in my head to follow what is now coming along like SMRs.

The last time I met a UK prof, they were very sad about the decline in University enrollments in physics, like 20* down over the 70s, nobody wants to study hard for it anymore.

Kids I know that went the soft side into web dev haven’t fared well either, easy degree means competing with kids from India.

US kids go to college 1 year earlier but stay for 4yrs so graduate about the same time. I think that’s right, it is still very foreign to me even with kids in elementary.

I ~knew (hardly knew, just “yeah, those were around” out of one random bunch, without looking hard) only one or two who seriously ended up close to CERN. Most don’t really do that much with physics.

Anyway, this will be probably the century of ~biochemistry, ~biotechnology, and such – that’s where we know little / there’s much to be done / it’s damn hard.

(~physics is a fairly “done” deal, in comparison)

PS. And “get ahead”, that you mention in a post just below, is a zero-sum game – how too many people get taken by it, into thinking that should be the goal, is possibly even one of the main issues; perhaps precisely what leads to more or less sweatshops, for many.

“Back then physics also included nuclear energy and some binding energy stuff as well, enough to do rough calculations on energy which I have mostly forgotten. I want to get that back in my head to follow what is now coming along like SMRs.”

I would have enjoyed more of an engineering background. I opted for CS early on because I was thrilled I could do just about everything on my own personal computer without prohibitively expensive equipment. However I hadn’t considered that the low costs of computing would eventually enable third world countries to displace so many IT jobs. The barriers to entry are just too low to have comfortable job security.

“The last time I met a UK prof, they were very sad about the decline in University enrollments in physics, like 20* down over the 70s, nobody wants to study hard for it anymore.”

To be fair, there may be other factors contributing to that. How many times over has the cost of education multiplied since those days? I went to school at a yearly expense which was 20X more expensive than my parent’s, and I earn a fraction of what they did in medicine. I started courses during the IT bubble and graduated when it popped, pot luck I guess. I kind of regret that decision, but it seemed the perfect fit for me back then, so I doubt I could have known better.

“Kids I know that went the soft side into web dev haven’t fared well either, easy degree means competing with kids from India.”

I agree completely, competing in low barrier fields is extremely difficult when such different costs of living are factored in.

Agreed, with the caveat that it depends on who you work for. Web dev is larger than any other CS market, which makes it easier to find work. But on the other hand, many web devs are not well paid because the vast majority of clientele are cheap. I find that for most clients, price is the number one criteria over quality, consistency, security, etc. I was even arguing with a manager at an insurance company about the need to fix security issues, but they declined.

I’ve had some clients come to me having had a terrible experience with offshored projects, but when it comes time to fix the mess, the companies still don’t want to pay to do it right. As much as we like to bash Indian IT shops over quality issues, more and more I think the companies should be faulted for not rewarding good quality in the first place. They may be getting exactly what they pay for – not very much.

Ideally there would be enough work at good companies to hire all the good devs. CS isn’t the easy street it used to be.

TBH like any jobs … if you are pretty good you get employed by the better companies if you make the effort.

Not to brag … I have been two years outta uni and I have gone up Â£14,000, mainly by job hopping. I started work in a recession and was rather low paid … but I was pushed quite hard in my first job and I was scared of losing it since I thought I was “rubbish”.

If you are good you will get through if you try … eventually. It isn’t easy I went for 25 job interviews, and I missed out on jobs by second place quite a lot since I had lack of “experience”.

“If you are good you will get through if you try … eventually. It isn’t easy I went for 25 job interviews, and I missed out on jobs by second place quite a lot since I had lack of ‘experience’.”

The problem was never with my skill level, I’m overqualified for the jobs I have. I just don’t have connections with employers who can appreciate or reward my skills, and now my employment history doesn’t reflect my abilities. It’s a catch 22, since I’m competing against applicants who’ve worked at google or microsoft and get hired over me because they’ve worked at google or microsoft.

Please let me know if you are able to get me an “in” at a decent CS employer in suffolk county, NY.